Do you see what I see?: Sheila and Sarah Day 11

Sheila Day 11

I have to admit, what I saw today poses a little bit of a problem, well . . . okay a lot of a problem! Each and every morning/evening, thanks to Sarah, the little guy pictured just above comes to get a warm drink of water and a good meal. A couple of weeks ago, Rah came to stay with me and it was soooooo cold outside. Homeless kitty must have sniffed out my bleeding heart cat lover of a daughter, because within a few short minutes he was fed, watered, and had an outside home to snuggle into. Ironically, she actually got close to him and all he ever does is HISS at me!

This little vagrant kitty has been hanging around my house for months and months and months and months . . . UGHHHHHHHHH! I have chased him away because he always manages to tree my poor kitties, and they just do not like him hanging around. However, this kitty has A LOT of CATTITUDE which I find extremely ANNOYING since I feed him twice a day, and simply put, his furry little butt should be more thankful than what it is! However, each morning I see vagrant kitty, he hisses at me and I feed and water him! Every evening I see vagrant kitty, he hisses at me, and I feed and water him!

I have two cats of my own and there is more than enough CATTITUDE to go around my tiny little house! AND now, I have more than enough CATTITUDE to go around outside my house too. BUT here is where it gets good today.

My friends all know that I have a soft spot for kitties. In the time I have lived at my place, I have been blessed with oodles and oodles and oodles of cats that people have seemed to "think" I just had to have. I have managed to find homes for all but my original two, and to date, 8 kitties have found new homes! I want to stress that my place is NOT the Holt Humane Society for Vagrant or Knocked up Kitties! However, today I received a text from one of my friends who had a little furry creature that needed a little TLC and a warm place to get better. And I thought to myself . . . BY ALL MEANS, I have a HUGE house so bring it on over:)

The text went like this--SUBJECT: Found this little kitty at the dumpster buried under the snow almost dead. Will you take her? Please!!!!

My response, bring her over, and I will find her a home! This little fuzz ball looks just like a mini version of my Sophie. She nuzzled in while I sat amidst a sea of papers and did my correcting. She ate, slept, and poohed in the cat box. I named her Holly Bella because she is a Christmas kitty.

We live in a world where people and pets are often disposable . . . how sad is that? On one hand, that is the harsh reality of the world we live in, but isn't it a sad commentary on humankind. Have we forgotten what it means to love one another unconditionally. Think about a cat? They choose to love you or they choose not to . . . either way, make no mistake, they choose. It is all about them and the world in which they are GOD! Are we the same way? My love for my cats is unconditional . . . probably kind of a dumb love. I may or may not, probably not, receive any love or attention back. However, when they do, it makes me feel happy, happy, happy. I wonder if that is how God feels about us? He loves us unconditionally, we reject him a lot of the time, but when we don't, and he feels us connected to Him, he is happy, happy, happy . . . Do you see what I see?

Sarah Day 11

Normally, I don't read mom's post for the day until I finish my own. I like to know that when we happen to write about the same sort of thing, it's because we're seeing the same things. I like the irony that often happens between our posts. However, today was different. I knew what mom would be writing about and I could hardly wait to read!

When I woke up today, I had two missed calls from mom and one text. Her text was a forward from her friend who took in a kitty that was found in a dumpster. Her friend was asking mom to find her a home. Of course there was a picture of the little baby and after I saw that she was a mini Sophie, I knew mom already had her. After mom and I had time to chat about her new kitty (that I know she'll keep), I decided that I was also going to write about cats today because they bring our family so much joy.

One day, I would LOVE to put ALL of the cats in our family in the same house. It would surely be heaven! Mom has three cats, dad has two (but their technically mine/mom's), Jordan and Sam have three, and Jesse and I have three. Holy moly that's a whole lot of cat! The problem is that for most of us (dad and Jesse being the exception) we could easily be convinced to have another, and another, and probably another. There never seems to be enough cats in the Michaels family.

I think dad, mom, Jordan and I would all agree that our love for cats started with our first, Fluffy. She was the most perfect cat. She had long gray fur and big green eyes. She liked to be outside during the day and inside during the night. We had her for close to 16 years. She was around 18 years old when we had to make the decision to put her to sleep. She very suddenly got extremely sick. We found out that she had cancer and her chances of living through surgery were low. We knew that we gave her the very best life that we could have possibly given her, so we said our goodbye's. I try not to think about the day we put her to sleep, because it's such a vivid memory . . . I instantly cry at the thought. Fluffy definitely brought out the cat lover in all of us.

Fluffy

It's strange to think about how attached we become to our feline friends. After Fluffy died, it wasn't more than a week later that mom and I brought Big Boy and Skittles home from the Pennington County Humane Society. We didn't want to replace Fluffy, but it was impossible to go home every day and not have a ball of fluff waiting for us. Although dad wasn't thrilled that we came home with two, we all instantly fell in love with our Halloween kitties.

Call me crazy, but I'm thrilled that mom has a new kitty. I think it's amazing that my family is providing so much love to 11 cats. I often find myself wondering where all of these cats would be without us. When we adopted Skittles, she had recently been hit by a car and she had nerve damage to her front left leg. She now has three legs. One of my kitties came from a woman at my mom's church who had passed away and the family couldn't find a home for her. Jordan adopted a cat from the PCHS that came from a hoarding situation. She's a beautiful cat, but she's not very social or lovey. All 11 of our cats are like our children. We protect them, we support them, and we love them ALL THE TIME. Not only do we provide love and protection for them, but they often do the same things for us. Cats are amazing intuitive creatures and I fully believe that they are always aware of how their humans are feeling. I don't think Mom, Dad, Jordan, Sam, Jesse or I would be nearly as happy without all 11 of our furry children, and to be honest, I'd be surprised if our number stays at only 11.